Name

Class

Date

The philosophers of ancient China often used parablesshort, often humorous, storiesto
illustrate a moral or lesson about human nature. The parable below is from the writings of a
philosopher named Liezi, who is thought to have lived about the third or fourth century B.C.
Little is known of Liezi except that he had many followers and traveled throughout ancient
China, providing advice to the rulers of small states As you read, think about the lesson the story
teaches. Then, on a separate sheet of paper, answer the questions that follow.

The Man Who Forgot

There was a man in Sung by the name of
Huatse, who developed in his middle age a
peculiar malady [diseases or illness] of forgetting everything. He would take a thing in the
morning and forget about it at night, and
receive a thing at night and forget about it in
the morning. While in the streets he
forgot to walk, and while standing
in the house, he forgot to sit down.
He could not remember the past in
the present, and could not remember the present in the future. And
the whole family was greatly
annoyed by it. They consulted the
soothsayer and they could not
divine it, and they consulted the
witch and prayers could not cure it,
and they consulted the physician,
and the physician was helpless. But
there was a Confucian scholar in the country
of Lu who said he could cure him. So the family of Huatse offered him the half of their
property if he should cure him of this strange
malady. And the Confucian scholar said:
His malady is not something which can
be cured by soothsaying or prayer or medicine. I shall try to cure his mind and change
the objects of his thought, and maybe hell be
cured.

So he exposed Huatse to cold and Huatse

asked for clothing, exposed Huatse to hunger,
and Huatse asked for food, and shut Huatse
up in a dark room, and Huatse asked for
light. He kept him in a room all by himself for
seven days and cared not what he was doing
all this time. And the illness of
years was cured in a day.
When Huatse was cured and
learned about it, he was furious. He
scolded his wife and punished his
children and drove away the
Confucian scholar from his house
with a spear. The people of the
country asked Huatse why he did
so, and Huatse replied:
When I was submerged in the
sea of forgetfulness, I did not know
whether the heaven and earth
existed or not. Now they have waked me up,
and all the successes and disappointments and
joys and sorrows and loves and hatreds of the
past decades have come back to disturb my
breast. I am afraid that in the future, the successes and disappointments and joys and sorrows and loves and hatreds will continue to
oppress my mind as they are oppressing me
now. Can I ever recover even a moment of
forgetfulness?

1. What did Huatses family do to try to find a

cure for his illness?

3. Recognize Cause and Effect What do you

think was the reasoning behind the scholars
cure for Huatse?

2. Why was Huatse angry that he had been

cured?

4. Identify Central Issues What lesson about

living a peaceful life do you think the philosopher was trying to teach with this story?

50